


Trepidation

by KillJoy998



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alex cares, Alex is a sweetheart, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Not too late
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-15
Updated: 2015-11-15
Packaged: 2018-05-01 19:27:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5217890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KillJoy998/pseuds/KillJoy998
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sean's scared. He doesn't want the others to realize. It's just... He's not the only one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trepidation

**Author's Note:**

> I just can't get enough of Havshee, but there's limited fanfics of them no matter what site I visit. And, instead of complaining, I thought I'd add to the community.

Sean doesn't usually get scared. He hasn't really had much reason to. Before getting picked up by Charles and Erik, his life wasn't really exactly thrilling enough to evoke fear and adrenaline to course through his veins. His life had been pretty normal. Pretty boring. Too boring. He had always wanted something _more_ from life, though he had never really pinpointed just what that 'more' was. He didn't really know, back then. Back then when he was just that awkward, gangly teenager with too many freckles with limbs all over the place-- back when he was _nobody_. Nobody but a guy who was an easy target for bullies at school. It was why he rarely spent any time at school at all, knowing full well that when he did go he would just get shoved around and teased and mocked and hit. He didn't get an education. Just an ass handed back to him. It was probably why he got kicked out, he thinks. His grades were pretty crap. He didn't try. He was too scared to. It was one of the things he _was_ scared about before he made it here in the mansion.

 

But now he's here. In this mansion, with Charles and Erik and everybody else, and he just-- he thinks that maybe he should have put more thought into this. More thought into just what Erik and the Professor was asking from him. Back at the aquarium, he obviously didn't think things through enough. He guessed he went with them _because_ he wanted something more. He must have thought that _this_ , being part of something small albeit so huge, was his _more_. He had wanted it to be his more.

 

Maybe it was too much of a difference. Too much _more_.

 

Because Sean's scared. Scared about tomorrow. Absolutely terrified that he might... That he might _die_ tomorrow. And, he knows it's selfish, of course it is, because he's obviously not going to be the only one, but he just can't help it. He has been utterly petrified ever since Shaw and his goons attacked them back at the CIA place, because that was what made it _real_. It wasn't a joke anymore. It wasn't just a group of teens and young adults coming together to share their powers and be free with each other and have _fun._ He realized that day that having fun wasn't what Charles and Erik recruited them in for. And they paid the price for it.

 

Despite defining their enemy and helping Erik, they still lost Darwin. And to this day, just a couple of weeks after that dreadful event, Sean still thinks that Darwin's death is still in the air. Still too new to them. The feel of his death trickling through all of them-- pulling them down to the point where they can't breathe.

 

Or... Or maybe it's just him. Sean feels pretty lost, these days. He's smoking more. Distancing himself. He doesn't want them to know. He's sure Charles already does, just by default, but he doesn't want anyone else to find out he's a coward. They think he's stupid. Dopey. A weird kid. Awkward. Not fit for the team.

 

He's fine with that. He's been dealing with that for years.

 

Because he's also become the _baby_ of the team, too. As idiotic and strange as they think he is, he's still the youngest. Still the kid they want to baby. Charles shows this the most out of all of them, but he supposes that's just because he's Charles and the man mothers everyone. The Professor sees them all as his children, probably. But it isn't just Charles. Raven has taken to acting as his older sister, but he sees her attempting not to laugh at him when he does stupid shit. He's starting to think that she really doesn't care. He sees her distancing herself from Charles and Alex and himself, gravitating towards Hank and Erik more. Hank, he understands, because he's pretty sure that Raven has a crush on him, and vice versa, but he doesn't understand why she'd want to get close to Lehnsherr. He doesn't trust him. He doesn't trust many people that forcibly shove him off fucking satellite dishes. But maybe that was just Erik's way of acting as a mother bird, because Erik's been trying to get closer to them too, if they want it or not, or if he even admits it. It's why he thinks he's being babied by Erik too. He doesn't really have much of an opinion of where Hank stands on the spectrum. Hank had spent the entire two weeks with them in the lab, or with Raven, or running with Charles. He didn't spend time with Hank.

 

His clock, which is situated on his bedside table, immediately starts to rattle into life, flashing the brightly coloured numbers on the display as the blaring noise pounds in his ears and echoes across the darkened room, and Sean is forcibly removed from his thoughts. He glances towards it, his lungs wheezing out the last patch of smoke ignited by his cigarette that dangles loosely from his two fingers.

 

3:00 am.

 

Too early. Maybe he should have gotten some sleep. Saying that, he doubts that sleeping would have made much of a difference.

 

The only difference his stupid alarm makes is that he's brought out of the world in his head and back into reality. Back in the reality that it's not even _tomorrow_ anymore.

 

His fear lies _today_. And he's _shaking_ because he could die _today_.

 

His cigarette falls to his duvet, because he's propped up on his bed, sat up straight with his back against the headboard, and his hand seems to have lost all grip on the deadly object. He's still clothed. He didn't change into pyjamas the night before. He predicted he wouldn't have slept, anyway. So he's still in his loose trousers, and his red shirt is unbuttoned, opening his skin to the warm air.

 

It's too warm for it to be just three in the morning. It's meant to be cold at night, isn't it? He doesn't know anymore. He doesn't care.

 

Because 3:00 am turns to 3:03 am, and he knows that if he keeps looking at the clock, the time will just keep ticking on like it's nobodies business. Like it doesn't matter. As if the time continuing on throughout the day until when they have to leave this mansion, to get involved in that _war_ , doesn't matter.

 

To Sean, it really does.

 

He's still a child, essentially. He doesn't want to die. He knows that's a pathetic thought to be having now, at this time in the morning, alone, in his bedroom, not even under the covers. But it's still a thought he's having. Still a thought he's shaken up over. So much so that he wants another cigarette. Not that it'll help. If it'll help, he would have calmed down by now. He knows how it works. He's been smoking long enough.

 

Before he can mechanically reach down in the vague direction of where his cigarette lay abandoned, he feels a few gusts of air break through his window and his curtain to brush over his body on the bed, making his shirt rustle at his sides. He rolls his head to the side, peering through cracked eyelids to see if it would be worth actually moving to go fix the problem. Because even though he complained that it was too warm for this time, he doesn't want to be cold either.

 

With that thought, he groggily pushes his palms onto his bed so he can use his strength to swivel his body around. His legs dangle on the edge of his bed, and he uses his hands to push himself up one more time so now he's standing. He's not wearing socks, and his bare feet can feel the coolness of his floor, but it doesn't faze him. He moves then, slowly, just a few steps, so he reaches his window steadily. His curtains are draped across it, enclosing it, so he has to use both of his arms to pull the offending material back. He wants his window as bare as he feels.

 

It was kind of a bad idea, he realizes. The small bursts of air he felt before are now worming around his body as the crisp air of the outside world fills up his room now that there's nothing to stop it. He situates himself so he's sitting on his windowsill, and he lets go of the curtains. They only fold in on each other a little, so one is covering his back, but the other is caught on his foot which he rests on the windowsill with his bottom. He doesn't lean against his window because he doesn't want to close it anymore. He changed his mind. He wants to feel the breeze.

 

He doesn't see much of a view, honestly. He doesn't expect to. This isn't the first time he's looked outside his window to find nothing, after all. Just trees. Because the mansion is locked away from the rest of the world, it's private. Too private. Sometimes Sean doesn't like that. Doesn't like being so closed off. But sometimes he _does_. He doesn't necessarily like being alone, no, but he likes the safety. Knowing that staying here is the safest option for him and his kind right now.

 

But going out fighting isn't. Going to _war_ isn't. It's why he's scared.

 

Doesn't want to die.

 

He wants that something _more_ , and he knows he can find it, if he's given the chance. And maybe a part of him knows that this is that chance, but right now he just... He wants to forget this. Forget that he has a chance of dying today.

 

He reaches blindly behind him until his fingers catch a packet of something on his dresser. It's his cigarettes. He turns his upper body so he has the visuals he needs to snatch his lighter up too.

 

His room is dark. Obviously it's because it's early morning, but also because his lights are off. He didn't leave them turned on even though he knew he wasn't going to sleep, but not because he cared about Charles' electricity bill. No. He left them off because the dark soothed him sometimes. Not all the time, he can be scared of the dark too, but right now it comforts him.

 

The scraping sound of his thumb against his lighter isn't pleasant, but the spark of a flame on the metal is. Satisfactory, almost. He pulls out a cigarette from his packet and lights it before he reaches behind him to deposit his lighter and pack back to where they originally rested. He leans against his wall that dips outwards to connect his window to his room, and he fluidly moves his arm upwards to his mouth so he could take a drag.

 

He smokes too much. He knows that. He doesn't, however, know how to stop. It doesn't matter now, he supposes. If he dies today then his smoke coated lungs will be the last of his worries.

 

He wouldn't have any worries at all. Because he'd be dead.

 

Dead.

 

He inhales deeply because he doesn't like the feeling that shrivels up his spine.

 

It's 3:15 am when his door opens. Sean still hasn't moved from his spot by his window, and he's onto his second cigarette that he's barely had any taste of, when he turns his upper half yet again to regard whoever it was that had intruded in on his room.

 

It's Alex. All short blonde hair-- _soft_ short blonde hair-- and vivid blue eyes that aren't too pale nor too bright and pale mouth and toned torso because he's _shirtless_.

 

Fuck. Alex is shirtless.

 

At 3:15 in the morning. In his room. Sean's intoxicated brain doesn't really know how to patch the clues together.

 

But _Alex_.

 

God, did he miss Alex. Which was stupid, really, because there was nothing to really miss. Sean saw Alex last night before everyone dispersed to their bedrooms to attempt to get a good night's sleep. He hasn't seen Alex for... Four hours and forty-five minutes. Yet he still missed him. Right now, in this moment, four hours and forty-five minutes seems like an eternity ago.

 

 _Alex_ didn't go around babying him. No. Alex didn't hide his snide and teasing laughter unlike Raven, and Alex didn't make him breakfast in the morning or call him out on his appearance and how dishevelled he looks and that he needed to take a shower unlike Charles, and Alex didn't go around giving tough love and shoving him off high objects unlike Erik. And Alex didn't go around ignoring him unlike Hank.

 

No, Alex doesn't baby him. And Alex doesn't think he's a stupid, weird kid, either, unlike all of them. Alex treats him differently altogether.

 

It's something Sean has never experienced before, nor did he ever believe he would get to experience it.

 

It goes unsaid, whatever it is between them. They only met the same time when they met everyone else here, but Sean feels like he knows Alex enough to get to know him. To get to feel him.

 

Because they're probably going to die today.

 

Alex doesn't say anything. Just stares, similarly to how Sean is just staring, but Alex is the one to make the first move. He's quick, but silent, and he's at Sean's side before either of them could blink. Sean doesn't understand what he's doing here. Alex should be sleeping. He should be sleeping. But they're not.

 

Sean just sits there, gazing up at Alex, because due to the fact that he's sat on a low ledge, Alex is finally taller than him. It's a nice view from down here. The blonde looms over him, but he looks nothing like intimidating.

 

Sean can _hear_ Alex breathing from here, but maybe that's not anything impressive, because Alex is so _close._ And yet still not close enough.

 

His wrist that's connected to the hand with the cigarette in is taken a hold of, and Sean's eyes cautiously drift to his hand for a moment as Alex's fingers trail up his curled palm and to his fingertips. Sean has no idea what is going on, but then Alex is taking away his cigarette, his eyes never leaving Sean's when he looks back up at him. Blue on blue.

 

He doesn't see Alex drop the cigarette out of his window, but he doesn't need to to know that it happened. The only thing he sees is Alex's face inching closer, but then his eyes slip closed and he doesn't see anything at all, just _feels_ Alex's lips on his, and they're so _soft_ , so gentle. He presses back, delicately, and his brain doesn't really know what's happening when he feels Alex's body dip, but then his back, near his shoulders, has an arm across it, and it isn't until he has another arm under his knees that he understands what's happening.

 

He doesn't protest when Alex lifts him up into his arms and away from the cold window, mainly because he doesn't want to pull his mouth away from Alex's _to_ protest, but even when the inevitable happens and they softly break away for oxygen, Sean still doesn't complain.

 

How in the world could he complain?

 

"You should stop smoking," he hears Alex grumble quietly, in that deep gruff voice of his, but he doesn't have anything to say to that.

 

He merely nods his head once and leans back in, eyes barely open, just to kiss him again.

 

Alex kisses him back like this _isn't_ possibly the last chance they have, like they could do this forever, and then proceeds to lead them both to the bed with Sean still in his arms.

 

And this, _this_ , this is something more. This is what Sean wanted. What he _wants_.

 

It isn't until it's gone past four in the morning and he's exhausted, that he learns just why Alex visited him.

 

Turns out Alex was-- no, _is_ \-- just as scared as he is. It's just that Alex is scared for _him_ , and not himself.

 

Sean pulls him close, so he's the one holding Alex and not the other way around, kisses him once more, and tells him he loves him.

 

He feels like he can carry on and win this war when he hears the same words repeated back to him.


End file.
